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Former 49ers receiver Dwight Clark and co-conspirator in “The Catch” said leaving the dump that is Candlestick Park will be bittersweet.

Clark’s touchdown reception from a heavily-pressured Joe Montana in the waning moments of the 1981 NFC Championship game launched a 49ers’ dynasty that would net five Super Bowls, yearly divisional crowns and countless golden moments.

Many of those will be memorialized Monday night in Candlestick’s final regular-season game when the 49ers host the Atlanta Falcons.

Dwight Clark will re-live the catch one last time

“It’s been a little weird,” Clark said Wednesday morning via conference call. “This is the final game at Candlestick. All I’ve known is Candlestick Park. I think it will be bittersweet. … I hate that the 49ers won’t be playing on the field where all the Super Bowls were won. But this new place (Levi Stadium) is going to be awesome.”

Clark’s catch will be recognized as the single greatest play in the 53-year history of the now crumbling stadium. He plans to sit in the end zone where he caught the watershed pass with ESPN’s Chris Berman on Monday to re-live the memory.

Clark said he still loves talking about the catch, and is reminded daily of the play through a e-mail, or a fan, or a message. He has even taken to diagramming the play for fans sometimes when he signs autographs. He got the idea from the late Bill Walsh, who signed a lithograph of the catch for Clark and drew the play on the bottom.

Clark was signing at a card show in New Jersey about seven years ago, when he spotted a child in a wheelchair decked out in 49ers’ gear. “I wanted to do something special for him,” Clark recounted. He thought of Walsh and drew a diagram of the play and signed his name. Then, everyone else in line wanted the same thing.

Clark’s memories of Candlestick were not always sweet. He recalled making a one-handed snare of a Montana pass in the final game of the 1982 season against the Rams to get the 49ers within field goal range. A winning field goal would have propelled the 49ers to the playoffs in that strike-shortened season. The kick was blocked.

Along with great catches and stirring moments, Clark also remembered the structure itself, including the drafty corridors, which reminded him of a 1920′s Chicago-style row house. Emerging from those chilly hallways, Clark always hoped for a warmer situation once he stepped onto the field. But then he said the damp turf would soak the soles of his feet.

“It was a dump,” Clark said. “It was our dump, so we could talk bad about it, but we didn’t want anybody else to talk bad about it.”

Barring an improbable 49ers’ playoff home game next month, Clark will leave Candlestick Park for the final time Monday night. When he does, he’ll have plenty of memories to keep him warm.